


Days Gone By

by agoodtuckering



Category: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Genre: F/M, Family, Fun, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Romance, This is all original and completely my own writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 22:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15447396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodtuckering/pseuds/agoodtuckering
Summary: This is the story of Willy Wonka Sr. and his life.





	Days Gone By

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something. Fun, soppy, sad, and heartbreaking. Everything I enjoy writing, all mixed up together.
> 
> This is original and canon to the novels “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator”, and is also canon to the Mel Stuart/Gene Wilder film. This account has nothing to do with the Tim Burton film. He isn't Wilbur Wonka, the mean dentist, from the Burton film. This story is original and so is the character.
> 
> In my mind, of course, Peter Capaldi is Willy Henry Wonka Sr. He was basically inspired by Peter's portrayal of Wilkins Micawber and the new set photos of him all dressed up. I wanted to post this here for you lot to enjoy as well.

Hope was such a wonderful, truly amazing thing.  
  
When he looked into her eyes, he saw it. He saw hope. _Always hope._ She was his reason for reason, his happiness, his joy, and he saw the very same thing reflected in her bright, chocolatey-brown eyes. The sentiment was more than returned, and his wife — Madison, her name was — had always loved and admired the same things and understood how important this was to him. This business, it was his livelihood. It was his hopes and dreams and wildest desires.   
  
It was a crazy thing, but he loved it. And she loved it as well, because she loved him. Through thick and thin, she would always remain by his side. And she did, forevermore.  
  
Along with Madison’s help, many years ago, Willy began a candy business. Well, it started off as a chocolate factory, really. He /was/ an eccentric chocolatier. At the time, it began as no more than a single building that he had made into a makeshift factory to produce his fantastic, fabulous chocolate — or Wonka Bars, as he called them. From there, he’d created the Inventing Room. Very important, that room. And the others followed. That tight space held so many rooms.   
  
One evening, as he came home, still smelling faintly of heavenly cocoa powder and sweet sugar, Madison snuck up on him at the door and threw her arms around his shoulders. “Darling!” Immediately, she buried her nose in the thicket of wild, brunette curls at his temple and held on.   
  
He laughed softly and brought her in closer, letting her hug him round the neck. Gentle fingers wove through and through her blonde hair, brushing wisps away from her ear. He even picked her up from the ground, relishing the girlish, playful squeal that tumbled from her lips. There were moments that she still made him feel so young and utterly in love. Often, in fact. “Willy! Put me down! My goodness,” she exclaimed, “I’ll break your poor back! You’re thinner than a licorice stick!”  
  
In reply to _that,_ he could only laugh all the more. “How could you possibly hurt me? You weigh nothing, darling,” he told her, hoping to quell those nerves or worries in her mind. She surprised him, though, by taking him by the face and pecking his lips softly. “You don’t understand,” she whispered teasingly. “You’ll be lifting two now, not just one.”   
  
Her hand fell sweetly to her belly as she gazed up into his face, wondering what was going on inside that wonderful, lovely mind of his. Rather suddenly, a brilliant smile spread across his lips. It was practically radiant. “I’m going to be a father?” he asked. “Is that what you mean?”   
  
She could only nod. There were happy tears forming in her eyes, and, as she noticed, in his own as well. It was everything they had ever wanted and prayed for.   
  
Years later, as the business continued to flourish, so did their small family. They moved into a rather roomy apartment above the factory that they had designed together with the money they had scrounged for years.  
  
Willy bought out nearly half the street, in years to come, and built up his business well enough rebuild that half of the block, making a _real_ factory building, worthy of their beautiful business.   
  
They needed the space to work with. The business was booming. Booming like exploding, cherry-flavored whippers and whoppers. It was an absolute dream.  
  
All the children loved him. The children loved the candy, too. And soon enough, he began to _explore._  It wasn’t long before he began to make whizzpoppers and crazy-flavored bubblegum and never-ending gobstoppers.   
  
All sorts of things found their way to the tiny, local stores that lined the streets he’d grown up on, and their once-barren shelves. He brought such business for corner-stores and shoppes and lowered prices for the poor, for they were all the ones who needed his business the most.   
  
It’s why he found himself in the business in the first place — to make children and families happy. The ones who needed the joy and treats the most were often the ones who could hardly ever afford such things.   
  
He wanted to change that fact. They deserved all the fidge and fudge and howlers and doofies that others could easily afford. It wasn’t fair. But maybe, just maybe, he could make things a bit more impartial and equal for the young boys and girls, no matter what sort of background or families they came from.  
  
“Willy!” Madison called one evening, from the kitchen. Her husband and son were playing in the living room together. Willy Jr, as they named him, was spread out across a soft, fuzzy blanket with a soft, faux-wooden toy made the husks of a cacao nut. It smelled wonderful and was completely safe. He was a giggling, laughing mess.   
  
Slowly, he crawled over to his father with a wide, toothless smile and made a babbling, baby noise. His little hands latched onto his father’s soft, cotton tunic. Oh, those tiny fingers... They melted Willy Sr’s poor heart.   
  
“Willy,” Madison called again, eventually wandering into the room and warming all over from the sight of her young son curling up with her husband. It was such a sweet thing to walk in on. She came over, brushing a few errant, wild curls from her husband’s forehead and murmuring, “Dinner’s ready. C’mon, then, love. I made stew for us tonight.”   
  
“Sounds lovely,” he told her. He snagged her by the chin for a tender kiss before hopping to his feet, a bit slower than he’d been in his younger years. He toted their son into the kitchen and nudged the high-chair over with a slipper-covered foot.   
  
“In you get, little man,” he told Willy Jr, placing the boy safely inside and booping his nose. Then he cast a look towards his wife, saying, “Smells positively delicious, Maddie. I should really let you have your hand at the factory some day. You’re amazing in a kitchen, you know that, my love?”   
  
She rolled her eyes playfully, although she _knew_  his compliments were true and sincere. They always were. He was a good-hearted, sweet man. Too sweet for this world, perhaps, but that’s why he made candy and chocolate — to spread that sweetness around with the rest of the world.   
  
They were happy for many, many years to come. Many adventures and wonderful memories were made. They took their young boy traveling the world with them when they had the money and he began to work in the factory with his father during the week, after school. For years, they worked together — _side by side_ — making candy. Young Willy Wonka Jr. loved the trade as much as his father and mother both did.   
  
But one day, one terrible, rainy day, Madison came down with a rotten case of pneumonia. She never recovered. It took her life, despite Willy the Elder and Younger doing their best to take care of her. Young Willy, now in his twenties, could do nothing but watch his father’s heart shatter. He even retreated from society for a while.   
  
He was a heartbroken man.   
  
“I miss your mother so much,” he would say to young Willy, most nights. Her reading chair was empty, her knitted blanket resting — _cold and unused_ — upon the back of the cushion. He was a sad man. But, his love for the Wonka Factory never faded. He kept at it. How could he ever neglect the business that he and Maddie had put together with their own two hands, years and years ago. Together. They had done it together.   
  
Such was life. Everything had been done in love and done together.   
  
The tough years came to pass. Willy Sr. healed over time. He missed her, but the simple reality of it was that she was gone and he would see her again some day — if one believed in that sort of thing, and he did. They weren’t just married. They were _soulmates._  
  
He eventually passed the business over to Willy Jr, who diligently worked away at keeping it top-notch. He loved the work as much as his father. Willy Sr. expected nothing less from the ingenious, inventive young man. It was a wonderful transition. And with it, Willy Jr. found incredible inspiration for more, new ideas as well. The candy apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, one could say.  
  
For years, things went very well. Willy Sr. set up a candy museum, adjacent to the factory. He became the curator, taking families and young boys and girls on tours on the weekends, when school was out.   
  
But, shortly after, a rival named Mr. Slugworth began to send in spies. He sent them in innocently, as new women and men to work for the Wonkas in the Chocolate Factory. As a result, Willy Jr. locked the factory down. It was the only way to ensure no one else would attempt to steal their recipes. Things had come to a head.   
  
Several years later, mysteriously, the factory began producing candy and chocolate again. Because of the risk of industrial espionage, Willy and his father had gone to extremes. Something had to change.  
  
Unbeknownst to any locals, they had traveled and found the Oompa Loompa people. They lived in a small village near the Great Glass Elevator, and the Wonkas paid them graciously in their favorite food, cocoa beans, as well as letting them live in safety beneath the Wonka Factory rooftop. They loved their new life, and loved the Wonkas in return.  
  
Time passed and Willy Sr. began to notice a change in his son. He looked... weary, almost. Tired. Had the strain of life begun to get to him? He wasn’t sure.   
  
After dinner together on the rooftop one night, over a sweet nightcap, he went to his boy and tried to /talk/ about whatever was bothering him. It was worth a try, after all, wasn’t it?  
  
Looking at his son for a moment, a hand gently touching his shoulder, Willy Sr. simply said, “Listen to me, boy,” be explained. “You either need to find yourself a woman and settle down, like I did so many years ago, or you need to find an heir for this wonderful place. I worry for you. You look so tired. I understand it. Believe me, I do, and I just want you to be happy.”   
  
That sparked an idea in young Willy’s wild mind. He looked up at his father with _that look,_ the eccentric one that said he had a brilliant plan running through that bizarre mind of his. His eyes were twinkling mischievously, brighter than any glittery whoopees, sparkling fancakes, or bloofs that were made in their factory.   
  
“Not a bad idea, pop,” Willy Jr. said with a soft, pensive hum. A hand found his chin before running thoughtfully through his wild, blonde curls, curls that he had inherited from his father. “I think I’ll be needing some golden tickets, though,” he added a moment or so later.   
  
_Interesting,_ Willy Sr. thought. _Very interesting, indeed._


End file.
